Technology + communication = targeted information - strategic communication at Sprint United Telephone Florida

Case Study:

What emerged for Sprint/UTF was a plan for strategic communication that linked various technologies to facilitate information to employees.

Consider for a moment that your job is to communicate specific, instant information to 5,800 workers in each building, division and region within your company. In addition to providing corporate-wide information, your job is to tailor the information specific to the audience in each of the 31 corporate buildings, each of the 11 districts and each of the three regions making up the company. This is precisely what Sprint/United Telephone Florida (UTF) has accomplished.

While one of the core tools they use to distribute information is a sophisticated video and PC messaging and scheduling system, the role of video within Sprint/UTF's communication process is only a part of their entire communication solution. This is a critical point to remember: while video is a vital tool in the communication process, it is not the only available option corporations are actively using.

Video departments no longer can function as islands unto themselves within the corporate structure. Video managers need to be involved in the process of communication strategic planning. They have the tools that corporate communicators need to help solve the communication puzzle within an organization.

Management buy-in

Vital to any successful program or project is management buy-in. The key to driving the entire Sprint/UTF communication effort was a direct result of the executive management's involvement in the entire communication process.

Sprint/UTF's internal examination revealed a need to change: Employees needed and wanted more information. Core business issues were not being communicated. Internal communication in the past typically dealt with such items as employee of the month, biggest sale, quality team and so forth. These were communicated primarily by print.

Strategic communication

Lloyd Karnes is manager, strategic communication, for Sprint/UTF, which services more than three million customers, "Employee recognition is certainly a major part of any effective internal communication program, but we want to make sure that we give our employees more than that. We want them to have more information on the strategic core issues of our organization. Strategic internal communication is the single most important process our organizations have toward achieving our corporate objectives."

What emerged for Sprint/UTF was a plan for strategic communication that linked various technologies to facilitate information to employees. According to Karnes, "We were doing a lot of things (to communicate), but they weren't the right things." Through the evaluation process, Sprint/UTF's management redesigned its core communication processes, and "it totally changed the way leadership thinks about communication," he adds.

Karnes reflects that strategic communication was "never more critical or prominent in our organizations than today. It should be clear to all of us, the best equipment, the best technology and even great quality products and services alone are not enough. It takes people to facilitate. Facilitate means you can't do it all yourself. Our role as internal communicators is not to communicate every bit of information that flows within that organization. You can't do it. But what we can do, and do effectively, is to see that the tools and the processes are in place that enable associates to communicate among each other."

Cross-promotion

Using all technologies for internal communication has worked well for Sprint/UTF. Their video efforts are directly tied into their electronic and print communication efforts and vice versa.

With the new focus on improved employee communication through the strategic internal communication process, Sprint/UTF has further advanced its communication efforts to achieve true interdepartmental involvement, not relying on a single method of information delivery. This is cross-promotion of information, where each communication technology - from video productions and video messaging, to E-mail systems, LAN based technologies - and print, all work together to further corporate information. Each form of communication reinforces the other. To that end, The Sprint News Network was developed. It has six delivery methods, each of which has its own strengths as a communication vehicle.

The Ambassador is a full-color print monthly internal publication mailed to the home of every employee.

SNN Today is an electronic newsletter distributed three times a week (or more if warranted) via E-mail to all users. Supervisors are responsible for distributing copies to those employees who do not have access to E-mail.

Quanda, established by partnering with Sprint/UTF's MIS department, is an electronic service similar to user "forums" on CompuServe. The focus of Quanda is to facilitate communication between management and all employees. It is a question-and-answer format that allows employees to pose issues directly to executive management and to each other.

SNN Leadership Briefings is another form of electronic communication. Industry news, stock market information, and other related business news are compiled and distributed to executives during the first two hours of every business day.

SNN Leadership Letter is an E-Mail newsletter targeted exclusively to supervisors. The SNN Leadership Letter allows timely dissemination of information on policies and procedures, management skills or other corporate news of interest primarily to those who supervise others.

The SNN Vision Channel rounds out the Sprint News Network. The Vision Channel uses an advanced video messaging, scheduling and graphics creation system to instantly distribute corporate news and information to Sprint/UTF locations over a network of TVs and PC monitors using existing LANs. Sprint/UTF creates its own graphics and text messages on a central PC and sends them over standard phone lines to receiving PCs that broadcast the information to more than 140 television sets in 31 locations. Television sets are placed in strategic, high-traffic locations for employees to watch. The same messages also are delivered over 34 LAN servers to 500 PCs. Messages are interactive: Employees retrieve the information by subject category. They also are viewed as screen savers.

Sprint/UTF supplies employees with national and world news, business news, sports, and weather information through TVI NewsBreak, a nationally distributed news service. Health and general safety messages also are broadcast to employees through another nationally distributed program called TVI Life and Wellness.

Programming content on the vision channel

As mentioned before, Sprint/UTF's 5,800 employees are scattered throughout the state of Florida, creating a logistics nightmare in communicating up-to-date information in a timely manner, be it by video or print. Yet Sprint/UTF successfully designed its Vision Channel to not only distribute corporate information to all locations, but also to distribute audience-specific information as needed.

As a result, the Vision Channel's programming is grouped together based on subject content. For example, messages relating to corporate-wide information and events are in one segment of the program.

Next, each region receives its own specific news: Northern, Southern and Central. Each of these regions has its own unique characteristics, therefore business issues in one area may not be relevant to another.

After regional messages are displayed, district-level messages are viewed. Finally, information is broken down to the site/building level, where discrete information to these locales is distributed.

The 60-Second Sprint

"The 60-Second Sprint" compresses the latest Sprint/UTF-only news and information and broadcasts it 10 minutes before the hour on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. On Tuesdays and Thursdays at the same time slot, "Sprint Financial News" focuses on key financial goals of the company as set forth in their business plan. As employees are made aware of these objectives, they can take the necessary steps to help achieve them.

Other video applications

Sprint/UTF's visual communication department is under corporate communication's direction. Since implementing the new strategic communication initiatives, the department's role has increased - additional staff and equipment were added to produce more internal and external videos. New equipment focused on video acquisition, a non-linear editing system and an animation system.

Strategies work!

A wealth of technology is out there today that can help any organization communicate more rapidly, efficiently, and more fully. An old proverb says, "Without a vision, the people perish." Corporations may have a vision. They may have tremendous technologies within their walls. Yet, if interdepartmental rivalries and factions along the front lines of communication technology prevent employees from understanding what the company is trying to achieve, then communication's battle, which video can help win, is lost. Management loses because goals are not being achieved. Employees lose because jobs are lost when products and services fail to go out the door. Video departments lose because they have tools and the talent to help communicate what needs to get done to survive and prosper as a corporate entity.

William J. Smith is marketing coordinator, Target Vision, Pittsford, N.Y.

COPYRIGHT 1995 International Association of Business Communicators
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